


Quadrature

by ProwlingThunder



Series: Ink Stains On Paper [2]
Category: Yoroiden Samurai Troopers | Ronin Warriors
Genre: Alternate Dimensions, Attempted Murder, Attempted assassination, Bodyguard, Bodyswap, Court Politics, Different Versions of a Character, Family Politics, Gen, Liberal Abuse of Headcanons, M/M, Ninja, Original Characters - Freeform, Past Relationship(s), Samurai, Shinobi, Stolen Body Syndrome, The Date Family, This Family is Ridiculous, Trauma Recovery, new relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 14:30:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6474103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luckily, light bends around obstacles-- or it goes through them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quadrature

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rainbowgal](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Rainbowgal).



> Quadrature — The term that describes two celestial bodies appearing to be ninety degrees apart, from the perspective of the observer. An example is when the Moon appears to be at a right angle to the Sun, as viewed from Earth.

He woke to shadows, startled out of his rest by a hitch in his chest. It clawed it's way from his lungs in a wet, ragged coughing fit that left him exhausted and panting. Every muscle screamed in protest from the abuse. He tried to catch his breath, though just when he thought he had it another fit would spark, tapering off as he groaned in pain.

The pain was not wholly unfamiliar; it touched a cord in the back of his mind, poking at old memories that stirred like dust and then settled again, his mind too distracted to pry at them for long.

Panting, he groped at his chest blindly, pushing at his covers in an attempt to ease the weight. The air shifted, settled, and then cool fingers brushed his hands away, a broad hand spreading on his chest.

Blissful chill suffused into fevered skin, and the shapelessness of slumber took him again.

  


A lifetime later, Lady Amaterasu spread butterfly kisses over his skin in the form of morning sunshine, coaxing her child into the lull of listlessness. He opened his eyes to survey the garden outside, stones raked into intricate patterns around a koi pond and small spot of greenery. Several cherry trees were even further away, ringing a branching willow.

He had been propped up with pillows to recline on the porch, and he was cocooned inside two thick coverlets that both salvaged his modesty and kept him happily warm.

Birds chattered and sang. A mottled calico cat sat on the lip of the pond, watching the fish within.

He watched her until his strength left him and then he fell asleep again.

  


The third time he woke up, he was where he had been, though this time he had more strength and the blankets had been peeled partly away, split down the middle to expose his shoulders, arms and chest. Someone he did not recognize sat next to him, carefully and methodically massaging his hands-- first one, and then the other, and then back again.  Every so often the stranger turned his hands over, and massaged the tendons of his wrist, then smoothed his fingers back out again when they curled in response.

His own hands were vaguely familiar to him. They were the same paleness they had always been, but they looked thinner than he remembered and the sheen was wrong, sickly.

In contrast the hands holding his own were larger and healthier, and sword-callouses brushed over his thin skin in a way that felt familiar but could not possibly be. They were tanner than his own, and a hair darker than average. They felt cool against his warm skin, and the touch was gentle; when they went down to smooth his fingers again, he caught the thumb sliding under the digits and held on. His reward was for the stranger to still, and they stayed just like that for a long time.

The stranger might have said his name, in a deep rich baritone that he felt he knew. But his mind was filled with cotton fuzz, wrapped up in it, and sleep took him down.

He slept.

 

 

He woke. This time-- the fifth? The tenth?-- it was to the sound of voices that his mind was awake enough he could put names to them, almost.

“-- recovers from this. No one ever has...”

“It is not possible.”

Except the one from before, familiarly unfamiliar, something he felt, intimately, that he should know. It was cool and crisp, like the blackness of a winter night, just as deep and perfect. Also angry, judging by the tone and the rumble of a low, quiet growl in someone's chest.

“I told you. He woke. He _moved_.”

“Master Kujuurou,” said the second voice, a doctor, no doubt. He sounded so familiar, a little old but as no-nonsense as could be. His voice grated on him a little; he thought about opening his eyes to glare at the collection, but thought better of it. He did not think he was awake enough for that yet. “I can assure you that is not possible. By all rights the young master should have died _months_ ago.”

Someone's fingers were resting against his own beneath the safety of a blanket, cool to the touch. Kujuurou? He thought maybe it was, tried to move his hand closer to it. His whole arm was on fire, burning beneath his skin, in his veins. It felt familiar-- not wrong, but not quite right either. Worse than his mind insisted it should. It was slowly crawling out of his shoulder, thick and heady still, not diffusing like light.

The growling jerked and died at the same time blessed coolness penetrated his flesh. That made it a pretty sure bet that it was Kujuurou's fingers. The huge hand turned over, curled around his wrist, and he relaxed into the hold.

“Seiji?” Kujuurou sounded breathless, his voice barely a whisper.

The doctor had no such scruples. “Lord Date! Are you awake?!”

He ignored him in favor of trying to wiggle his fingers in Kujuurou's grasp, in place of answering. His throat itched at him, and protested the briefest of thoughts that alluded to making real words come out of it. He managed that endeavor, at least, touched his fingertips against the barest edge of Kujuurou's pinkie.

The other went so tense, he might have struck him with lightning instead.

“...you _are_ awake.”

“He's awake!” The doctor shrieked. “Daichi, go get my things! Tell the news! Hurry! Master Date, Master Date, let me look at you! Come now, open your eye!”

Seiji had the vague notion that he moved, dropped down beside him, across from where Kujuurou sat. It sounded like a very good time to make a tactical retreat, and he focused on the traveling winter in his blood as it whispered the sweetest of lullabies.

  


He slept.

  


He woke with pure and utter clarity, and lungs that ached, sore, but only like a well-worked muscle. He stretched under the blankets, testing the range and motion of fingers and toes. Something unwound under his skin, released. Relaxed.

The sun was shining down on his face in all of the great Goddess' radiance, and he felt energetic. Not healthy, not whole-- but energetic, with a desire to get up and move. He did not feel like it, perhaps, but he also felt lazy, and that wouldn't do.

When he opened his eyes, there was an unfamiliar stranger sitting a few feet from him, just watching him. His hair was a twilight-blue under the rays of sunshine, framing his face in slight waves like he had just pulled it free from a functional tail. His skin was sun-kissed, worn a bit darker than the average; the tan of a daily vigil, not of farm labor. All of it save for a scar at his left eye, a vertical stripe that bit into his eyebrow and cheek, a horizontal one that crossed it to follow the curve of the socket.

There were no family crests that he could see stitched in to blood-scarlet and winter white, but his clothing was not formal enough to warrant it. It was... comfortable clothing. Maneuverable.

A long blade sat on the veranda before him, sheathed in brown, the hilt wrapped in gold. It was a simple sword, if painfully long. A horseman's blade-- or one for a man easily a foot taller than his cohort. Even sitting, the other certainly seemed to be so.

He waited for a heartbeat, and then the stranger's mouth tipped in to a slight frown. When he spoke, it was the wisp of winter wind.

“Are you awake now, Seiji?”

Seiji blinked, dimly surprised that the other knew his name. Dimly surprised that he had _forgotten_ his name. Neither of those things quite mattered.

“Kujuurou?” His voice was quiet, disused; it cracked a bit in the middle of the name, but the other didn't seem to mind. In fact, his shoulders sagged in painfully visible relief. Something in Seiji's heart twisted violently at the sight of another so _raw_.

He knew of exhaustion, and of being perhaps a touch too honest or bold when it struck, but he knew of them in the sense of brothers-in-arms, of a coalition of wandering warriors, ronin gone to war without their families to back them, allied but not _allies_ , people he would trust with his own life but never with his clan.

Kujuurou's noticeable relief was something sharper, sweeter. Something Seiji knew from other memories, memories he himself had never had, something he had never thought he would ever get the chance to taste.

“You are awake.” And the relief and wholehearted gratitude in his voice sent a bolt of awareness through him that made Seiji's spine straighten as he pushed himself up properly. The tones were woven with affection, with the sense of hope fulfilled. With so many other things he could not begin to name as Kujuurou watched him.

“I am awake.” His voice box protested, but Seiji ignored it, determined and certain and-- this. This _thing_ , this magical, wonderful, unfamiliar thing-- he wanted this, in a way he had never wanted anything.

“How are you feeling?”

“Unwell.”

Kujuurou's lips twitched in to a small, crooked smile, showing a hint of teeth. “That is to be expected. You are still recovering from the spell.”

Seiji barely noticed those words, considering the distance between himself and Kujuurou instead. It was a respectable gap. _Almost_ formal, though not quite. Like his mode of dress, it didn't quite reach the threshold. It did not feel like like an act; it felt like he was too stiff, instead. Like this was not the way he usually was-- or the way he had been, when Seiji was still asleep.

A part of him wondered why. He remembered Kujuurou's fingers massaging his tendons, stretching and relaxing the muscles. If they had that sort of trust.... He let the thought drop for now, focused instead on pushing himself further upright. He felt the pillows shift behind him, falling into place, and then he relaxed into them again.

Kujuurou looked like he had almost risen off the floor, like he was prepared to jump and catch him should he waver. Seiji did not know if they had that sort of trust between them, but it was a comfort to think that they might.

“Tell me what I have missed.”

The swordsman shifted, settled back onto the floor, and did just that.

 

 

He woke to the sound of raindrops pounding against the storm shutters, thunder chasing the wind across the sky, and someone pressing a cool rag over his nose and mouth while a white-hot agony burned within his veins.

Were he another person, he might have panicked differently. He might have opened his mouth to scream, blazed the fire hotter. He might have.

He did not.

He reached for the dagger hidden beneath the coverlet instead, certain it was there, and filed his surprise away for later when he did not find it. But just as quickly, the rim of the fire-bowl was under his fingers, and then it was meeting someone's head.

The grip slackened. He forced himself to roll away, felt something small and cold fall away from beneath his skin.

A flash of lightning revealed open storm shutters and the first familiar face he had seen yet, and then he felt something foreign pull his consciousness away.

  


He slept.

  


He woke up blind. Around him, familiar quiet voices drifted through the air, pitched with a bit of fervor and hysteria. One in particular stuck out; sharp and frosted, the first bite of winter, and the sound of it caused a sure certainty to settle in Seiji's bones. He opened his mouth to-- to call for him, maybe, ask him what was going on-- but the air caught in his throat and his lungs seized.

For a moment, he could not breathe. He remembered cloth over his face, sickly-sweet to his senses, sharpened by the adrenaline coursing through his blood--

He drug his free hand up to his face and grabbed at the obstruction, fingers bumping plastic-- an oxygen mask?

Three different voices protested. Not one of them were the voice he was waiting for, though strong fingers curled around the wrist and stilled his fingers. “Let it be. For now, you need this.”

Kujuurou.

A knot unhinged somewhere in the vicinity of his collar. He breathed out shakily, gutted, and felt more than heard Kujuurou hum in satisfaction. He reached up and brushed wet hair away from his temples, fingers brushing something else that caught and pulled over the rest of his face, over his eyes. Cloth. They had him blinded?

Kujuurou must have felt his pulse jump or something, because he brushed another lock of hair back and spoke gently. “Rest. You are in no more danger.” Seiji doubted that one. He was a Date, and an armor-bearer; every moment he breathed was a moment that someone was trying to put a dagger between his ribs. Whether it was his family or someone else was usually up in the air. And yet, he trusted Kujuurou to make it so for the time being. “Let Doctor Sasaki tend to you.”

A voice on his other side spoke quietly, moving in tandem with smaller fingers. It spoke of familiarity, and his heart ached. He knew this voice, too. “Easy, little brother. I have you now.”

  


It felt like hours passed. Seiji drifted in and out of consciousness, losing gaps of time and coming to, feeling his sister on one side-- not his sister, even though she sounded like her and bore her married name, because Yayoi had not finished her doctorate yet, though she was trying-- and Kuujurou on the other, resting cool fingers against his neck.

He asked-- thought to ask what they were doing, but he was blessedly numbed from the collar down. It probably was something that he did not actually want to know. Whatever it was, Kuujurou had decided it was best Seiji not know it was happening.

It took some time for Seiji to stop falling asleep at the drop of a pin. It was easier to wake up from sleep now, but nodding off with no warning was enough to make him _more_ than a little more paranoid.

The first time he woke without his blindfold, the storm had passed. Or, at least, he thought there had been a storm at some point. He was fairly certain he remembered one. But today the sky was bright and pale blue, cloudless. He basked in the gentle warmth of it as he tried to take stock of what he could recall, what little there was to remember in the first place.

The details themselves were hazy at best, but some facts had settled to his bones. The cardinal ones burned as bright as his Virtue in the dark; he was not in his own home. He was an intruder in someone else's life, sleeping in someone else's bed, interacting with someone else's people.

And yet, no one seemed to pay him any mind.

  


He nodded off and slept a little longer.

  


When he woke again, a young man wrapped in Date browns and greens sat just out of arm's reach, running a sharpening stone over the edge of a needle-thin blade.

Seiji watched him work in silence, taking in the sight of him. He was about his age, maybe a little older, but he had aged well enough. His hair and his eyes were both dark, his skin paled a bit by a lack of sunshine. A bold shade of dark blue was wrapped around his throat, threaded with silver, the tails of the cloth hanging over his shoulder.

He knew this man. Date Dentou had been a constant in his life, nearly a best friend, and the sight of him was relaxing.

The stone slid over the edge of the blade. He caught a glint of silver beneath the other's sleeve and started, surprised to notice the kote at all. Usually his mind glanced over such details, a sort of self-protection to save himself from the audacity of his ancestors. But they were quiet and did not protest while he turned the thought over in his mind.

He had always known Dentou was different. Everyone who was classically trained could wear a blade openly on the grounds, and sometimes they were expected to on extremely formal events, but never-- now that he was aware of it, looking closely at his memories-- had he ever seen Dentou slide a sword home at his hip.

The residue of his ancestors was quiet, still. _Halo_ was quiet--

“You look troubled.”

Seiji tried not to jump. Dentou had not looked up from his work, still pulling it methodically over the very edge. But Seiji would be a fool to think he was not paying attention to every trickle of detail. The kote might be hidden beneath his sleeves, but he still wore it. A shinobi, hidden beneath a shroud for polite company; nothing more, nothing less.

The quiet in his own mind was oddly titillating, but at the same time it was wrong on a level that harried his soul.

He dared not answer the man who wore his friend's face, and thankfully he could not. His throat was so sore it hurt to breathe, and his lips felt like they might crack if he moved them. He pulled his attention away to look for a glass of water. Found it sitting a few feet away, the earthenware mug a sharp brown in the daylight and warm to the touch.

It tasted like water. That was something, at least.

Seiji sipped at it carefully, using both hands to hold it steady. He knew his own limits though, and had to put it down when his stomach began to churn, his arms shaking. Small steps were required for his recovery.

Dentou pretended not to notice. He worked quietly, waiting for some sort of instruction without making it obvious that he was doing so. Watching Seiji, without seeming to be anything more than nearby to a casual observer. He felt bad that he wished Dentou were Kuujurou instead, even for a moment, even if he was entitled to wishing for the now-familiar comfort.

Kuujurou was not his sitter. He was not the sort to need someone to hold his hand to function, and to rely on the other man was to give away his own authority. What little semblance of it he had. Not to mention, he was _not_ their Seiji, and lying to Kuujurou was not something he wanted to do; he would pine from a distance, and no closer.

“What do you have to report?”

“Not much.” Dentou even had the same speech patterns as the one Seiji knew. That was going to make things difficult. “How much do you remember?”

“I remember a storm.” To be more precise, he remembered ambient electricity singing in his blood, wrapping around his soul like a soft, warm blanket. Lightning storms had ever had that effect on him, even before he had first held Halo. It was probably embedded in his bloodstream now, from generations of his ancestors carrying the orb or wearing the armor, rooting a higher charge right into their DNA. “And an inept assassin.”

A needle in his arm, a syringe. A wet cloth over his nose and mouth, suffusing sweetness into his lungs. They twinged in protest, remembering the way he had found it hard to breathe. A paralytic?

“You knocked him with your candle dish,” Dentou put in, tone neutral. Delivering facts, and asking as many questions as Seiji was, no doubt.

“I had no dagger.” He remembered reaching for one and coming up empty. The spur of adrenaline hadn't let him be surprised at the time, but it didn't stop him from remembering that he should have been, that he had wanted to be. Seiji had always slept with one within arm's reach. Usually more than one. _Assassin's sneaking in in the middle of the night_ wasn't actually a rare occurrence back home, and he couldn't sleep with his back to the wall every night. He had decided a long time ago that he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing him on guard and in a corner. “And killing him would have prevented you from taking him into custody.”

Dentou stilled.

“I see.”

Seiji allowed himself an internal smile. Even in his weakened state, he had the ability to make people wonder about his capabilities.

“On the matter of my report,” Dentou began carefully, his fingers unmoving as he picked a fine balance between formality and his usual tone. “There is little to say. I did take the assassin into custody that night, and he has been prevented from taking his own life on several occasions. He didn't give me anything to go on, which is his own damn problem now.”

Seiji wondered how many suicide attempts had occurred before the intruder had learned his target had survived, and how many had been after. And how many more would come, now that Dentou had apparently turned him over to his superiors and been regulated back to Seiji-sitting duty.

He didn't seem that broken up about the demotion from interrogator to bodyguard, at any rate.

“That is a new knife?”

Something in Dentou unwound. Maybe the set of his shoulders, or just the way he breathed, Seiji didn't know. But the question seemed to relax him. He ran his thumb over the hilt, frowning a little. “That's right, you were comatose when I got this one. It was three months ago, when I....”

Dentou's story faded to white noise.

  


He slept.

  


A siren's song permeated the haze of slumber some undefinable time later, calling Seiji back into the waking world.

He woke slow, feeling gratifyingly cool beneath his stolen skin, the fever of childhood sickness chased away. There was still a catch in his lungs, hitching in protest when he breathed deep, and his blood still felt too warm, bearing the promise of illness aplenty, but he felt better than he had in a while now. More like himself.

Stronger, too; there was energy and power in his muscles. Not a lot. It was going to take a while longer before he would consider himself healthy, but any returned strength was welcome progress.

His room was empty when he opened his eyes, but the veranda slide was open, candle-light diffusing into the night beyond it.

He pushed away his blankets and sat up, glancing at his lone light. The wick had burned low already, and only a few petals of the shaped flower remained floating on the oily surface. Seiji had no way of using it to guess the time; it could have been the first candle, or the third, or it could have even been the only candle, depending on it's original size.

He usually used ones that would last the whole night through, but this body had clearly had someone else looking after it for quite a long time.

The fact chafed at him a bit. He was a grown man, a samurai of an esteemed and ancient family, and a survivor of a war most people couldn't even remember. To be reduced to an invalid was a blow to his pride.

Not that it was something he could deny, either.

His muscles were atrophied by lack of use; he found he couldn't stand up on his own and reluctantly crawled to the wicker basket he remembered storing his candles in back at home. Most of them were smaller ones, two hours, and he thought that said plenty about which candles were burned most often. The eight hours he _did_ have were of sparrows in bamboo nests, done in the gold and green of the Date family. It was a familiar and welcome comfort, and he pulled it out of the basket and made his way back to the futon. Then, it was only a matter of straightening the wick and lighting it, turning the sparrow's crest into the focal point to melt the whole thing down.

The extra flame chased away the aches from his trek, but it did not provide him with the energy he had exhausted in his effort.

There was still the charge of electricity in the air. Seiji resigned himself to not finding the source tonight and drew one of the thinner coverlets over himself, settling down.

In the candle-bowl, the smaller light illuminated the sparrow's chest for a few moments, before it finally guttered out.

  


He rested.

  


He dreamed an old, familiar nightmare of San Francisco. He was in the family dojo, the world beyond rice-paper too light to dare dream of opening the slide. He was dressed in the same white and green of his armor, the Sword of Light in his strong hand, and he moved slowly through the katas that had become so ingrained during his formative years he could literally do them in his sleep, apparently.

The dream always started the same. After years of it, Seiji knew it was a nightmare every time, but he _could not wake up!_

The door slid open, and the demons spilled inward. The Sword of Light was heavy in his hands, but he forced it up, and began battle in earnest.

  


He woke up tangled in his blankets, the notes of a biwa echoing in his bones.

Dentou sat in a meditative pose on the far side of the room, still and quiet. The storm shutters were pulled closed behind him, preventing the steady sheets of rain pounding on his walls from spilling into the room. The eight-hour candle had burned down to the bamboo wax, the light playing with strange shadows on the shinobi's yukata. On a normal day, back home, it would mean that sunrise was still two hours away, but he had no idea when he had started it, and thus no reliable way to track the true distance.

He also had no idea how long his shadow had been sitting there. Watching.

He pulled himself up and carefully unwound the blanket from it's strangle-hold, a lifetime of learned habits preventing him from looking too long at Dentou or his place.

It was strange to be able to register his presence for what it was. Seiji had always known his purpose, of course, in the same vein that he had always known that the weaving in the ceiling wasn't just for looks. The Date as a whole may have decided to stop giving credit where it was due, but at no point had they decided to stop using Dentou or others like him.

He worked slow. Remaking the futon was a task that drank his strength like water, but he would return to it even more tired than he was now, so it had to be done. He stopped to rest often, breath uneven, but it did not take him as long as he had feared it might. Longer than he would have liked, but he considered how long it had taken him just to light a candle the night before, and decided that being able to do it at all was sufficient.

The whole time, Dentou sat, quiet as a ghost. Seiji ignored him with practiced, ingrained habit, and made his way to the wall to dare standing. He could feel Dentou's dark gaze on him, watching, weighing the odds of involving himself in Seiji's affairs, but he never came over.

Seiji wasn't sure his pride would have allowed him to be helped, either. He leaned heavily against the wall for support, his body shaking, shivering with effort, his muscles screaming in protest. He stayed there for a long time.

Eventually he eased himself to the floor and crawled back into bed.

  


When he woke next, Dentou had been replaced by Yayoi.

She looked like his Yayoi. The same dark eyes, the same haircut; the same instinctive quirk of her lips, easy and natural as breathing. There were laugh lines around her eyes, the lightest touch of makeup. He blinked up at her, and she removed her hand from his forehead, reaching down to do something beside him. He thought he heard a pencil scratching over paper.

“Oh good. You're awake. Dentou said you'd gotten up, but I wasn't sure I believed him. How are you feeling, little brother?”

 _Like I could use another three months of sleep,_ Seiji didn't say. Yayoi brought up her hand and held it in front of his face, extending a finger for him to track. He watched it intently. “Better. How long have I been out?”

“On and off a few months now. Sometimes you're even coherent. It's kind of miraculous.”

“All together, sister. How long?”

Yayoi frowned a little, making a thoughtful sound. “...your decline began a few years ago. Do you not remember?”

“I do not.”

"Hmm. Your vision is good. Still have your range."

Seiji watched her finger pass and vanish over his nose. He reached up weakly to stop her hand, curling his fingers around her wrist. "Sister." His voice.. sounded strange to his own ears. Panic licked at the tones of his words, at the edges of his world. She looked down at him in surprise.

"What is it?"

This is the extent of my vision, he wanted to say. He moved her finger back until he could see it, and then stopped again. Touching her, he could feel where her hand was in relation to his body, and it did nothing to help sooth him. He tightened his fingers reflexively, then released her, dropping his fingers down to the covers. "I am blind in one eye."

Her expression softened, saddened. The eddies of worry passed away. "Well, of course.. No sickness is going to bring your sight back, little brother. I could line you up for a prosthetic, if you really want it, but you've never seemed to mind before."

His sight was gone. He wondered what had caused it, why it had happened. When. How long had this version of himself been half-blind?

What was clear, at least, was that the orb itself was gone, or there’d be no _need_ of a prosthetic. He could feel a sharp pain behind the socket, and knew at once that it was a phantom. He would live. His ancestor had lived without an eye, and he was a fine swordsman despite it. He would take steps to ensure he was not caught unawares from that side. He did not want a replacement.

“No, that is unnecessary. I..” He what? What did he tell her, this sister of his that was not? “I had a dream. That I had never lost it.”

“That must have been some dream,” Yayoi mused softly. She reached down to brush aside a lock of hair from his face. His hair, at least, was still blond. He was grateful for that.

“I thought it was real.”

“I’m sorry.” His elder sister looked so desperately lost at his words that he felt bad for saying them, but it wasn’t a lie. She retracted her hand, brushed it down over his chest to smooth the creases out of his clothing. Her touch was warm, not the blessed coolness of frost, but it felt like safety. He closed his lid and relaxed into the darkness.

“So am I.”

 

  
When he next saw Kujuurou, it was early morning, and the rain had just begun to slacken up. He slid the door open, the pale gray of dawn behind him, soaked to the bone. Seiji struggled to sit up in his bed at the sight of him, but the elder samurai waved him back down instead. He relaxed into his pillow and frowned back at him, a bit troubled.

"You have been out all night?"

Kujuurou cocked his head to the side, a very wolfish gesture that made Seiji want to take a long walk in the woods. He wondered if they were here in this world as they had been in his own; the last of Japan's true wolfpacks, loosed in Date family grounds. His ancestors had ran with them, once.

"Most of it. You look better.. you sound better."

"My sister came in and jabbed me with needles." Seiji grimaced at the memory. In this life, as in his own, Yayoi was a good physician. But Seiji himself recoiled from much of modern medicine; from much of modern life, especially after what had happened in New York City, in San Francisco. Though he could not blame them entirely for his shortcomings; technology had advanced in a rapid pace in the last few centuries, and photography still raised his hackles-- as much his own as his ancestor's. That they could do it so easily...

"Hm. First time you've been awake for that, then?”

"I think I may have preferred to have slept through it."

Kujuurou grinned, moving behind a paper door. Seiji watched his silhouette, barely visible in the darkness of the other room. "It's good for you. Means you're getting better. You'll be up and making appearances soon."

"I do certainly intend to be back to fighting form before the winter gathering."

The shadow stilled for a moment. When Kujuurou spoke again, his voice was slow, his words carefully chosen. "That would take a lot of doing, I think. You shouldn't push yourself too hard."

"I have faith that you will not wound me terribly in a training spar," Seiji admitted. The other samurai emerged from the dressing area, wrapped in dry clothes and working a towel over his hair. "You have never done so before."

It was a shot in the dark. A guess. But Kujuurou stilled, so Seiji knew he had hit his mark.

**Author's Note:**

> Expect a chapter two, eventually. I couldn't quite figure out how to transition from this vein into the next segment, from recovering to recovered, but I'm not done with this yet.


End file.
